The pool is busier at seven than it would have been in the afternoon - the family rush, kids in from a day of sightseeing, a few couples, a group of men at the far end who've brought drinks from the bar. The air thick with chlorine and sunscreen and the noise of an enclosed pool space, shrieks bouncing off the tile.

I'm in the trunks I've owned for years. They fit differently now - the waistband sitting on hips that have moved, the fabric pulling across the seat, the legs gapping at the inner thighs where the crotch expects geometry that's no longer there.

So... we've come to a sex scene. Be warned.

Chapter 30 March 15th. 2026

Lucy came into Sarah’s room. She was still in her workout clothes from this morning, and sitting at the computer. “Hey,” she said and slid in close behind her. “I think we’re alone now.”

She slid her hand over Sarah’s shoulder and touched her small breast. It was compressed under a sports bra. She gently began to tweak her nipple with her thumb and forefinger.

Hood up. Hair bundled underneath it, more or less contained. The sweatshirt is the largest I own and it reaches mid-thigh and in the elevator to the lab I stand with my face down and the hood forward.

I get to my desk before anyone else. This was the plan.

I open the overnight logs and they are good — rabbit's margins holding, pathway data clean, projection unchanged — and I focus on this and not on the fact that I am sitting in a laboratory in November in sandals and a hoodie like someone who has not quite finished becoming a person.

Good morning.

"Morning."

Monday morning. The soreness is there when I wake - interior, a tenderness that locates itself when I move. I lie there for a moment taking stock of it, and then I get up.

Downstairs Emily is at the sink, her back to me. She turns when she hears me and her face has something in it - a careful stillness, the effort of someone holding their expression steady over something else. The coffee is already made. She pours me a cup without speaking and then turns back to the sink and grips the edge of it with both hands and breathes slowly through her nose.

I close the door and stand in the apartment.

The same. The coat hook, the small pile of mail I haven't dealt with, the kitchen visible through the doorway with last night's pan on the stove. All of it exactly as I left it. I stand in it with my shoes still in my hand and the hair falling into my face and let the sameness settle around me for a moment.

Chapter 6

When John and Hannah walked into the gym there was a huge cheer. Mary came over to them and took control.

“Come with me to Marilyns’ office and sit quietly. I’ll get you cups of tea. It takes time to settle down after being in a firefight.”

They sat and looked out at the others going about their business. John sighed.

“Do you feel it or is it just me. We’re the two most juniors in the team, but we’re being treated as if we’re something special.”

Chapter 5

For the moment, there wasn’t much that Marilyn could do. The two inspectors were making sure that when any tiny bit of information was discovered, it was placed in context and recorded. Everything needed to be kept in eleven murder books, one for each victim, as a trial may just pick one, with the others submitted to the judge before sentencing.

Darren Carver, known in the business as Icepick, gathers a team of skilled supervillains to help with a job.

This story takes place in the Whateley universe.

https://whateley.academy/index.php/forum/index

Chapter 28 December 25th 2025

There were times in Whit’s life when he saw himself in a photo, or a video, or in the mirror, and for a brief moment he saw her instead of him. Eventually he gave her a name, Sarah. Over time he realized that Sarah could be a great person, far less reserved than Whit. Sarah didn’t define her life by what she avoided. Whit imagined Sarah living a rich life full of new friends and experiences.

All Sarah ever needed was a chance…

Chapter Fifteen
Memories of Salem

Cassandra nodded in agreement. “I did say at the time I thought the curse was too strong a measure.”

Tichiba however, did not share their remorse. “Strong measures were needed then or maybe you two have forgotten Salem and the rest of our sisters who lost their lives at the hands of mortals?”

The afternoon shifts somewhere around two.

Nothing announces itself. I'm at my desk eating a sandwich and reading back through the morning's pathway analysis and somewhere between one paragraph and the next I feel it — not the tenderness, not the weight, lighter. More like the feeling after a problem resolves than the feeling during it.